


Dockside

by Swindlefingers



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Addiction, Gen, Lyrium, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 15:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4353566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swindlefingers/pseuds/Swindlefingers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short, three-chapter fic exploring the circumstances around how the unsigned letter came to be written, six months after Raleigh Samson’s dismissal from the Order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “You say the pain and the craving for lyrium takes you harder than most. It may be true—some grow more reliant on it than others—but I cannot share my supplies. There are rumors you’ve become friendly with mages since you were thrown out of the Order. If I were discovered handing you even a single drop of lyrium, Meredith would have our heads on display at the Gallows. Take this coin and buy passage out of here. Kirkwall is no place for a templar without a Chantry. Or anyone else, these days.”

* * *

With Meredith’s bootprint fresh on Samson’s ass, he doesn’t land on his feet in Lowtown; he lands on his hands and knees. He crawls for the first few weeks until a supplier for smuggled lyrium finds him, foaming and fidgeting in a dark corner of Lowtown. The lyrium helps him focus, helps him move from a crawl to a stumble, helps him manage.

He manages to find a flophouse to sleep in, manages to keep himself fed if he visits the food stalls right before they close. The days he manages to keep himself from getting sick from want of lyrium, and manages to keep himself healthy enough to work, are good days.

Samson works the docks at night as a loader. It’s day labor, every evening bringing the dread of not being needed but it keeps him in almost enough coin to make things work. He manages to never drop any cargo and manages to not to mouth off when the crates get heavier as the night wears on.

He shows up to stand on the stones every evening before the loading shifts start, and the foreman points at him and sends him down the wharf with the other loaders for a night’s work.

He works on small crews of three or four, packing boats with sacks or barrels or crates or whatever comes down in the cargo nets from the dockside cranes and down into the hold. Kirkwall’s harbor is too shallow for the deep hulls of the cargo ships, so smaller boats are loaded up with the cargo and sailed out to meet them. The cargo is transferred from the boats to the ship, the anchors are pulled up, and the ship sails away.

Tonight’s loading is going as well as any. He moves quick, chatting with the two other loaders working with him for the night. He stacks a sack portside, and brushes at something buzzing at the back of his head. All kinds of vermin live in these holds no matter how much they clean before and after loading.

The buzzing returns as he drops off another sack. He remembers the sensation: it’s someone pulling for their magic.

Only a few pieces of cargo are left in the net. He can handle that amount himself and get the boat cleared.

He spins on his heel, arms open wide, and claps his two companions on the back, “Would you look at the pair of you? Worked clear through the night and worn down to the bone.“ He smiles, "How about I do you both a favor and finish stowing these last few sacks while you piss off to the Hanged Man?”

"And why would you do that?” scowls the stout one, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

He pushes them towards the rope ladder that reaches out of the boat’s hold, “I’ve got me a soft heart, you could say. Buy me a beer or three when I come by in a bit and we’ll call it even.”

“Seems fair,” shrugs the pretty one. “S'only a few more of ‘em there,” he motions to the four sacks still in the cargo net. The stout one shrugs in concession before she starts the climb up the rope ladder.

Samson unloads another sack as they climb out of the hold. “There’d better be a beer waiting for me!” he shouts up as they pull themselves over the lip of the deck.

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll have your beer,” the stout one shouts down.

He turns back to stow two more sacks. He speaks to the boat in low, even tones as he moves, "You from the Gallows, or you looking to stay out of there?”

Samson can hear the rustle of their robes, the scrape of their shoes on the wooden hull. He sets the a sack down on the starboard side, “You smash your phylactery before you dashed off tonight?”

The buzzing at the base of his skull gets stronger, it makes his eyes water. He unloads another sack before pressing the heel of his hand into his temple, “Guess not.” He blinks to clear his vision.

“I-I-I have to… I have to get out,” the voice that creeps out from behind the stack is thin and tight.

“Figured you weren’t out for a midnight stroll. Got a plan for what you’re gonna do when this boat meets up with the big cargo ship out there?”

Samson grunts as the buzz intensifies. It forces him to double over to keep his balance, “I want to help but I can’t with your magic swelling like that. Ain’t got the tolerance for it like I used to.”

“How do…”

Samson’s afraid to tell them he’s a templar, afraid of them doing something drastic, of them asking for 'help’ from some _thing_  in the Fade. They’ve got to trust him, though, and trust isn’t built on hiding things.

“I’m-was… I was a Templar before Meredith threw me out for passing letters for a mage,” he spits her name out.

“Templar Samson?” A tall, gangly girl with dark brown eyes, curly yellow hair, and tawny skin steps out from behind a stack of flour sacks.

He straightens up as her magic ebbs, “Just 'Samson’ now, if it’s all the same to you, Chalan.” He remembers when she was brought in to the Gallows as a child; all tears and snot, and wailing so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. He remembers reaching to give her something to wipe her face with. He remembers watching her recoil from his metal-clad hand only to scream louder, for the buzzing to intensify, and for her tears to start freezing to her face. He remembers the quick-thinking enchanter brushing past him to comfort the girl, and Samson falling back into line without a word. A reminder that he wasn’t trained to comfort.

How her hair managed to lighten, and her dark freckles never disappeared despite the lack of sunshine for the mages in the Gallows, he could never figure.

"So it’s true then? The letters?” Chalan steps towards him, her eyes wide. “I mean, we’ve all seen Maddox-”

“It’s true,” he grumbles, the wounds are still too fresh, the hate is still too hot. “No time for stories though. They still got your phylactery, which means you don’t have much time. Also means you can’t stop running, you know that, right?”

“Running is better than… than… the Gallows,” Chalan wrings her hands, cracking a few of her knuckles.

Samson nods. Seems like they both have stories that don’t need telling tonight.

“This boat’s meeting up with a ship headed for Rivain. You got anyone there?” he asks.

She shakes her head. No, course she doesn’t. He tries not to think about how little she really knows of the world outside the Circle and its books. Tries not to laugh at how little  _he_  knows outside of the Circle. No one writes books on how to feed yourself, keep yourself clothed, and keep yourself safe in a city.

Chalan cowers as footsteps knock along the deck overhead. They don’t sound heavy enough to be templars, and they aren’t moving very fast.

“It’s the ship’s crew getting ready to sail the boat out,” Samson pulls on the rope holding the empty cargo net a few times, and it’s winched out of the hold. “They know the loading’s done. Now we shove off and meet up with the Rivaini ship out in the bay. Last chance to head back to your bunk in the Gallows.”

Chalan shakes her head, arms stiff at her sides, “I’m not going back.”

He nods, “Let’s get you on that ship, then.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short, three-chapter fic exploring the circumstances around how the unsigned letter came to be written, six months after Raleigh Samson’s dismissal from the Order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You say the pain and the craving for lyrium takes you harder than most. It may be true—some grow more reliant on it than others—but I cannot share my supplies. There are rumors you’ve become friendly with mages since you were thrown out of the Order. If I were discovered handing you even a single drop of lyrium, Meredith would have our heads on display at the Gallows. Take this coin and buy passage out of here. Kirkwall is no place for a templar without a Chantry. Or anyone else, these days.”

* * *

 

The wind blows stronger out in the open water. Samson and Chalan struggle to keep their footing on the roiling deck. He’s still not used to the motion. Circle mages don’t get much time at sea and she’s turning green.

Soon they join the other boats in surrounding the great cargo ship, all lashed and unloading. It starts to sit lower in the water as it’s vast holds are filled with goods.

A small woman in a large captain’s hat, with deep lines furrowed into her ochre skin, and bright blue eyes, descends a rope ladder to the deck. A braid of long white hair spills out from under her impressive hat and down her back.

“Is there a reason why the two of you are standing up here and not moving my cargo?” she eyes them sidelong.

“We just needed a few words with the captain,” Samson shuffles forward, trying to keep his legs under him.

“Well here you are, having a few words with her. What’s this about?” she tries to hide a smirk while she watches his feet slide over the deck.

“My sister here is looking for passage to Rivain,” Samson motions back. Chalan tries to step forward, but is knocked unbalanced by a rolling wave. She grabs onto Samson’s shirt, his wide stance is the only thing keeping them both standing.

Chalan interrupts, patting her brother’s shoulder, “W-w-we have an aunt there, you see. She’s very sick. I need to get there as soon as possible and your ship looked ever so fast.”

“This is your sister and you’ve got a sick aunt in Llomerryn,” the captain’s eyes crinkle as she grins. Her chuckle is rough and salty, “I’ve been enough places to know Circle robes when I see them, girl.”

Chalan lets out a whine as her hands drop to her sides. Samson opens his mouth, but the captain holds up her hands to quiet him, “I don’t know who you are, or why you want passage to Llomerryn. Thirty silver gets you a hammock on my ship.”

“How much money you got?” Samson turns to asks Chalan quietly.

She shakes her head, biting on her lip.

He starts to sigh, but Chalan cuts him off, balling her robe up in her hands, “I can earn my keep! I can sew and and cook… probably.” She turns to the captain, “I learn things quickly, I know poultices and potions. I’ve passed my Harrowing, I’m no danger. Please! Y-y-you don’t know what it’s like in there, I can’t go back.”

“That’s all well and good, but if I let one scared girl board my ship for free, there’ll be a line down the dock next time I’m at port in this Maker-forsaken city.”

All three of them to turn and look at the shouting being carried across the water from the dock.

“Couldn’t even wait until their spoons were in their porridge,” Samson mutters to himself. During his time in the Gallows, bed checks only happened if a mage didn’t show up for breakfast. Breakfast either happened earlier than he remembered, or Meredith added more bed checks. He bet on the latter.

“What’s it to be, then? Cargo’s offloaded, we’re pulling anchor. We’re headed to Rivain with or without you.”

Coils of rope fall from the deck of the ship above, unmooring the smaller boat.

The “please” that passes past Chalan’s lips is quiet and strained.

Samson shifts uneasily from foot to foot. The coin he keeps hidden in his boot pinches his heel, and he snarls. He looks back at the dock. The rising sunlight glints off of the armor of the templars moving around the docks.

He huffs as he pulls off his boot, pouring all the coin he has to his name into his hand. Thirty-six silver. All the money he’s earned for the past week. Combined with his wages for today he was going to pay for a vial of dust and another week in a flophouse, and manage to keep his meager, shitty life stumbling forward.

Thirty silver quietly clink into the Captain’s hand. She grins with a smile punctuated with gold teeth, and sweeps her arm up the rope ladder to the deck of her ship, “Welcome aboard, girl.”

“Thank you, Captain,“ Chalan hurries to climb up the rope ladder.

Samson pulls her back brusquely, “Never stop running, hear me? Never.” He points back at Lowtown, “They’ll hunt you. Some of them been waiting for this day their entire lives, and they’ll never stop. Do you understand? They’ll never stop.”

Her face hardens, “They’ll never stop. I’ll never stop.” Samson drops her arm, and she catches his hand, squeezing it briefly, “Thank you, Samson. I’ll never forget this.”

Samson nods because he can’t bring himself to say ‘you’re welcome’. She’ll be cursing his name in a few weeks as she’s running through a city square with the sound of templar boots behind her. “I’ll see what I can do about the phylactery but I can’t promise anything. You keep running like they still have it.”

Chalan nods and makes her way up the ladder.

He pulls his boot back on, trying not to fret about how his boot feels thirty silver lighter. Trying to not fret about how he’ll manage to get in enough work before the withdrawals start to take him too hard. Trying not to fret about how long it’ll be before he’s back on his hands and knees again. Samson licks his lips, his throat already going dry.

He thinks of threatening the captain before she climbs up after Chalan, but what would one wharf rat’s spiteful words mean to a ship’s captain? Might make life harder on board for Chalan. “Take care of her, she means a lot to me,” he says instead. They all mean a lot, like any person should matter. Somewhere she’s got parents or brothers or sisters. That’s what they’d say if they could, so he says it for them.

“Aye, your sister will land safe in Llomerryn,” The captain says. “You’re lucky you found my ship, I’ve got a brother in the Gallows.”

“Thank the Maker for small miracles,” Samson says under his breath.

“If you want to call it that,” she snorts. “We used to get his letters every week, but we haven’t heard from him for years now.”

“What’s his name?”

“Aven. He must be…” she counts on her fingers, “Maker, he’s fifty-four this year. My baby brother’s fifty-four.” She looks back at Kirkwall and mutters under her breath, “I wonder how he is.”

He thinks of lying, of saving her the heartache of knowing her brother’s got a brand on his forehead and no love in his heart anymore. He’d want to know if it was his kin, least he can do is offer.

“Do you want to know?” he asks.

The captain turns to him with a frown, “No, can’t say I do if you’re asking like that. I’ll just keep the memories of little Avie,” she taps her temple, “if you don’t mind.”

The first mate calls down the ladder, “Ready, Captain!”

She tips her hat to Samson before making up the ladder, “Anchor’s aweigh.”

* * *

The wind pushes them quickly back to the wharf. He leaves the hold of the boat along with the rest of the crew. He hasn’t looked like a templar in months, no one gives him a second glance.

Eight templars in spotless armor crowd around the foreman, demanding the ship’s registry and spinning the glowing phylactery around on it’s chain. They’re all hidden in their helmets, but he knows two just by the way they hold themselves. Agatha and Emeric. Fine templars, even-keeled when he knew them. The rest are more skittish, stiff, and unbalanced on their feet; they must be recruits.

He watches light in the glass vial pulse slower and slower as he passes by. He fakes a clumsy fall in front of the templar holding the vial and catches the phylactery in his hands. He hopes it’ll break under him so he can stand up, offer up a thousand pardons, take a few licks before scurrying away into the muck and the shadows, and Chalan will be untrackable.

When he hits the ground, though, he realizes the Maker only granted one miracle today and it was sailing out towards the rising sun.

The templars pull him up off the ground, and the phylactery in his hand is still intact. He tries to shatter it by squeezing as hard as he can, but a big metal glove pries his hand open and snatches it away. A big metal glove curls into a fist and slams into the side of his head, knocking him to the ground. His head swims with stars. Big metal boots kick him in his back, and a big metal knee lands on his ribs. He feels a few crack. The pain wraps around his chest, sharp and hot. Once he’s down, the templars leave him there. He can hear them shouting, but can’t make out the words, his pulse is too loud and heavy in his ears, and his vision goes black.

A bucket of cold seawater in his face startles him awake, his ribs protest the sudden jolt and he grabs for them. The seawater stings at the cuts on his face, the split in his lip. He can see the blood and tooth he must have spit up just in front of him. Someone’s dragged him out of the road and leaned him against a wall. Sun’s up higher in the sky.

Samson looks down at his battered hands, dripping with blood and briny water. He coughs up a shallow, hollow laugh, and wonders if he’ll ever learn. Helping mages is turning out to be bad for his health.

As the seawater dries sticky on his skin, he makes his way to somewhere quiet just like he did the first day out of the Gallows: on his hands and knees.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short, three-chapter fic exploring the circumstances around how the unsigned letter came to be written, six months after Raleigh Samson’s dismissal from the Order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You say the pain and the craving for lyrium takes you harder than most. It may be true—some grow more reliant on it than others—but I cannot share my supplies. There are rumors you’ve become friendly with mages since you were thrown out of the Order. If I were discovered handing you even a single drop of lyrium, Meredith would have our heads on display at the Gallows. Take this coin and buy passage out of here. Kirkwall is no place for a templar without a Chantry. Or anyone else, these days.”

* * *

 

Samson crawls into his bunk in Lowtown. He cradles his jaw in his palm, it feels hot and swollen. His tongue prods at the spot where his back tooth used to be; he spits out a lump of old, black blood. He wraps his arm around his chest, touching the tender spots along his side and winces.

Chalan is free from the Gallows, from Meredith, from the brand for now, and him with nothing to show for it but being broke and broken.

Getting up to piss, eat, and drink is a chore. Every twist in his torso sends hot pain through his healing ribs. Martial life with the templars left him well acquainted with the throbbing of cuts, bruises, and bones on the mend, but he’s learning a new ache out here.

It aches deep in his body. It grinds in his joints, it wraps tightly around his skull, it gnaws at his fingers and toes. The ache is a reminder of what he promised to always be, in the presence of the Maker and His bride, in the sight of his sisters and brothers. Meredith took away his armor, his post, his duty, but she couldn’t take away his need for lyrium.

The ache is also a countdown. Everyone in the Order knows there’s no quitting the dust. If a Templar lives long enough, it rots away their mind until their eyes cloud over and all they can hear is the song. If they try to stop? They go mad. Once their blood hears the song in the lyrium, it never stops wanting it.

In the Circle, Sisters and Brothers would come to a Templar’s bedside with aid. Samson remembers the winter he caught a flu that lasted for weeks. He remembers being visited by the Brother with the soft hands and wide smile who hummed parts of the Chant while cooling his fevered brow and helping him change his clothes, musky with dried sweat. He remembers the Sister who brought him broth and bread, herbs to drink down to help with his fever, and his lyrium. He remembers feeling safe, feeling cared for.

The only people visiting him now are the landlord asking for the week’s rent and a Carta pusher shaking a few vials of dust at him. He can hear it singing before she even sidles up to his bunk.

The dwarf, with a pitiful look on her round face, says she can tell Samson’s in a tight spot and that he can pay for the lyrium at the end of the month. She says she’s doing it as a favor, and that there’ll only be a small bit of interest to pay. She’s putting her neck out for him, she says with a smile, but she knows he’s worth it, with a wink. He accepts the terms with a nod of his head. Lyrium now, money later. Lyrium now. Lyrium.

The deep ache ebbs as the blue slides down his throat. It blooms cool in his chest, floats up his spine, and nestles at the base of his skull. He lies back in his bunk, exhaling. The hourglass turns over, the countdown begins anew. 

Samson picks up spotty work as a loader a few days later. He drops a crate and his pay is docked. He drops another the next night and the foreman sends him home for the week. They tell him to heal up and clear his head before he shows up again.

He visits some of the Lowtown shops for day labor. Some have him making deliveries or moving supplies, but it doesn’t earn much. He starts to beg more and work less.

Weeks pass, and the coin he begs or earns to pay back the Carta never seems like enough. The interest he owes builds, and the amount of money he earns stays the same. They offer him work when he shows up with the coin he earned for the week. They compliment his skills, his prowess. They tell him they can use someone like him, a human, to move around Kirkwall. Just make some drops, do some pickups. Easy work, low risk.

Samson shakes his head. He won’t do this now, not yet. He can make this work, he’ll find the coin. The Carta tells him that he better; they don’t like outstanding debts in their ledgers.

A few more magelings get out on ships. The Rivaini captain knows of other captains who’d take on passengers for fare. Forty silver, though. Thirty for passage and ten for their troubles. His take from the fares almost get him caught up with the Carta, almost, but another week passes and the debt increases.

The end of the month creeps up on him. He waits until the morning to write the letter. His hands shake less when he first wakes up, before the ache awakens.

 

> _“I thought I knew how much I needed out here, but the lyrium is different. I need more. I’m in debt for it. I can’t keep the sickness from finding me. You remember how it feels? Remember the month our shipments were late all those years ago? It sits in my skull and throbs. I need more. Please, just one vial. It’s all I’m asking for. It’d help me out more than you can imagine.”_

The response comes quickly,  _“I cannot share my supply”_ , along with eighty silver for passage out of Kirkwall. He’s never been one for running away. It’s not what Templars are made of.

His Carta pusher forces a smile as he drops the coin into her palm; his debt is clear for now. He picks up a small vial that should last him the week if he keeps himself on half doses. Half doses until he earns enough for a larger vial, just something to help him work, to drop the begging, to get his feet back under him again. 

Work doesn’t come as easily as he hoped. Samson begs near the entrance to Lowtown. The sun is setting and the air is cooling. Sometimes he catches merchants on good days and they drop coin in his hands. His skin on his face is red and peeling from the sun, and sticky from the salt air. People mill about, but he catches the squeaking of heavy armor behind him.

He spins around, feet planted and fists raised to see a Templar with his hands open to him.

“Thrask,” Samson smiles as he lowers his guard. “Scared the shit out of me.”

“I thought you’d be harder to find, Samson.”

“Oh? You hear of some other washed-up Templar begging for coin in Lowtown?”

“What about the coin I sent along?” Thrask furrows his brows.

“Thing with coin, Thrask, is that there’s never enough.”

“What did you spend it on?” He crosses his arms over his chest.

The smile slides from Samson’s face, “What do you think I spent it on,  _Templar_  Thrask? Think I bought myself a fancy new hat to wear to Chantry services on Friday? No, I paid off a debt and bought dust.” Samson snorts, “They call it dust out here, but might be more dwarf than dust.”

“I gave you that coin to get out of Kirkwall,” Thrask shakes his head from side to side.

“Getting out of Kirkwall wasn’t what I needed, now was it?” Samson’s lip curls. “There a point to this or are you just here to ask after my finances?”

Thrask sighs, “No, I apologize. I’m here because we’ve heard the rumors at the Gallows.”

“Rumors of what? Rumors that I’m not dead yet? That I’ve joined the Qun?” Samson motions towards the Qunari compound and chuckles.

“Rumors that an old Templar is being charitable and helping Circle mages and apostates onto ships out of Kirkwall.”

“Rumor has it, then? Well, rumor has it that it  _ain’t_  charity. It costs money to get magickers onto these ships and whatever kind-hearted blighter is helping these poor magelings out needs to be paid fifty silver for his fucking trouble.” Samson wipes the spit from his mouth and composes himself, “If you believe rumors, that is.”

The Rivaini captain had the right of it, he’s learned these few weeks: let one ride for free, and they all expect it. He sent off a few apostates to Captain Reiner on a recommendation, the only man out here taking on charity cases. The man has a ship, all Samson has is himself. There’s no charity to give out when you live at the bottom.

“And you’d be that ‘kind-hearted blighter’?” Thrask asks.

“Me?” Samson shakes his head, frowning, “You must be mistaken, ser. I’m just a poor beggar scratching out a living here in the dirt. Not a kind heart to be found in this bag of bones.” He raps on his chest with an open hand. It forces up a wet cough.

“Ah, of course. Well if you see the man, there’s a elf-blooded mage boy who’s been having nightmares and hearing voices. His mother came by to speak with me. She’s worried he’ll run off instead of coming to the Circle. If the lad comes this way, I trust the ‘blighter’ will know what to do.”

“And that’d be?” Samson narrows his eyes and crosses his arms.

“The Gallows isn’t any different than when you left. More and more mages are failing their Harrowings, and they’ve had years of training. Another Circle might be better for him. Maybe… Ostwick or Starkhaven? His mother thinks he might seek out the Dalish.”  

“The lad better have coin or he’s not gonna find much help from anyone for getting anywhere.”

Thrask nods and glances about the docks. He looks out of place in his shining armor and clean skin. “You know, Emerich and Agatha still haven’t caught the first one from earlier in the month. Seems they lost her trail out at sea and Llomerryn is a busy port.”

“Is that so? What a shame,” Samson tuts. “Pass along my condolences to Meredith. I remember how much she enjoys making sure every mage and templar was in their place. It must keep her tossing and turning at night, poor thing.”

“Yes, it certainly hasn’t improved her mood,” Thrask hums as he watches gulls loudly fighting over a half eaten fish. They screech at each other as they fly away, and his gaze returns to Samson, “Fifty silver, you say?”

“For passage? If you believe rumors,” Samson shrugs.

Thrask digs into a pouch on his belt and pulls out coin. He looks up at Samson, jingling the coins around in his leather fist, “These were found this in the mage’s quarters. Seems like she forgot to bring them with her when she left the Gallows.”

Samson snorts. His hands are used to reaching out to strangers who just see the dirt, the grime, the outstretched hands. Most people look  _through_  him, but Thrask looks  _at_  him, and it makes his stomach twist.

He can feel the tightness behind his eyes, the stiffness in his joints, the growling in his belly. He hesitates, but his hand darts out, palm up. He knows he can’t buy dust with his pride, can’t pay for his bunk with his pride, and can’t eat his pride. He’s only ever a few coins away from being back on his hands and knees again, crawling.

Thrask drops the silver into his palm. Samson quickly wraps his fingers around the coins. He feels the metal warming in his fist.

“This come with instructions like last time?” Samson drops them down his boot, knocking his leg about to shake them down.

Thrask steps closer and rests his heavy hand on Samson’s shoulder. “Just,” he sighs, “take care of yourself.”

Someone walking by might hear the easy pleasantry, but Samson can hear what’s wrapped up in those words. He can hear the worry from an old friend. Samson works at keeping his own life together. Thrask works at keeping the Order together while their home, their comrades, and their duty become something distorted.

Samson swallows hard, holding Thrask’s gaze while quietly nodding his head and quickly rapping on his armored arm, “You too, yeah? You too.”


End file.
